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A few months ago, I signed up to be a beta tester for a site called GiftOn (and if you want to be a beta tester too, you definitely should sign up right now!). It’s a fun concept – people share stories of the best gifts they’ve gotten/received, and users can search for gift ideas by occasion, relationship, type of gift, interests, etc. I’ve submitted two stories so far, and one was a story about taking my boon companion for a bookish birthday:

“My friend and I are huge bookworms. We’ve bonded over books and spent many a happy day wandering bookstores (and lamenting the fact that we can’t afford everything on our to-read list). So for her birthday, I came up with the present I would want to be given myself.

I gave her a homemade coupon for a day out, in which I took us out for a meal (most likely brunch) and then we went to a bookstore – and whatever book she wanted was on me! She loved it and we had a great day together.

This had the bonus of being a shared experience sort of gift as well as having a physical reminder of our fun day out. We both loved it!”

I submitted this story a few weeks ago and got some nice reactions and comments, then gradually forgot about it.

Until today.

Today, the site’s founder (who is a lovely person I networked with on The Job Hunt) sent me an excited email with a subject line I would have rejected as spam from someone I didn’t know: “Surprise gift for you!!! $100 cash for books!!!”

I furrowed my brow and immediately opened the email. She was almost as thrilled to write the email as I was to read it – someone had read my story and sent her this note:

“I probably can’t afford her whole to-read list, but I’d like to anonymously offer Allie $100 for her to buy at least a few of the books off her list.”

I sat there blinking for some time, then made some half-choked noises and looked up to see who I could stare at open-mouthed while pointing at my phone. (I did end up interrupting my coworker from dialing in to her conference call. NO REGRETS.)

I can’t get over this. I don’t know who this person is, but they made my entire day. I’ve never been on the receiving end of a Random Act of Kindness quite like this, and it made a grey Chicago day into a snuggly one with the thought of new books.

So, whoever you are – thank you!!! I can’t wait to spend the gift card (which will have a carefully-marked sticky note on it labeled “FOR BOOKS”) at local bookstores that I always want to support but can rarely afford.

I better get reading! There are new books out there waiting to be discovered!